Loose Ends: Flight School

[Halbarad]

It's a fine Saturday afternoon that finds Arkian once more entering the hangar of the Silver Star. The ship itself is clean and sleek, although at first there appears to be no one else in the hangar. After a few moments, however, the underbelly hatch of the ship lowers, and a rather short, wiry man emerges from the vessel. "Someone out here?" he calls out.

[Carthrat]

"Only me," calls back Arkian, walking towards the ship. "Are you the pilot I was supposed to meet?"

[Halbarad]

"Think so," he replies with a grin. "Name's Richard Thibodeaux, but you can just call me Rich. You must be Arkian, right?" He sticks out a hand towards Arkian.

[Carthrat]

Arkian grasps Rich's hand firmly. "That's right," he says. "I've been looking forward to this."

[Halbarad]

"Can't blame ya," he says with a grin. "She's a real beaut, ain't she?" He turns to look at the ship for a moment, then back to Arkian. "Heard you've got some flyin' experience already, but no idea how much."

[Carthrat]

Arkian shrugs. "I flew cargo ships and ferries to Earth and back for a couple of years. I know my way around a cockpit."

He turns and thoughtfully looks the Silver Star up and down. "That said, it's been a while. And most of the flights I took were over relatively fast, but this crate'll be in flight for a sight longer."

[Halbarad]

"Well, I know her pretty much better than anyone," Rich replies. "I've been her test pilot since the first prototype model came out. And lemme tell ya, she's no crate. Not as quick or nimble as some of the fighter craft I've flown, but a damn sight better than most of those freighters that make the Earth-to-Moon runs."

[Carthrat]

Arkian shrugs. "I'll take your word for it. Mind showing me around?"

[Halbarad]

"'course not, that's what we're here for," Rich replies, leading you inside the ship.

Once inside, you recognize the cockpit layout as fairly standard - a pilot and copilot's chair, with the typical main controls - a steering yoke and throttle mounted on the console. However, like most other newer ships, the console is arrayed with a dizzying array of switches, most of them not very intuitively labeled. "All right," Rich says, flipping a pair of them - and the lights on the console spring to life. "You've got main power, and the hangar's set to open once the ship's been powered up. Give it about a minute for the doors to open, and you can take her up."

[Carthrat]

Arkian glances over the controls, mentally ticking off in his mind such vital controls as 'Engine Power', 'Open Ramp', 'Navcomp set'...

Flicking a couple of other rudimentary taking-off-procedure switches, something catches his eye!

"What's that button do?" he asks, pointing to a big red button.

[Halbarad]

Rich glances over at what you're pointing to. "Oh, that's the hold jettison button. They tell you about that?"

[Carthrat]

"No," replies Arkian, turning on the engines proper. "What's it do?"

[Halbarad]

"Cycle takes about three minutes to complete, but it basically seals off the cetner hold and dumps it right out the bottom of the ship. Heard it got put in just in case you guys picked up anything that started causin' too much trouble."

[Carthrat]

"Is there a flightbook?" asks Arkian, glancing over all the controls. "There's plenty of stuff here I've never seen before."

[Halbarad]

"Should be one in the slot next to your seat," Rich replies - and indeed there is. A quick review of the book reveals that it really is primarily a standard set of controls, simply poorly labeled. One strip of switches that you weren't sure about, on the far left side of the pilot's panel, is devoted to fuel sources - apparently the ship runs off a hybrid hydrogen/magical drive, and the two can be switched at will.